Balicki decided for the ♦5. Look at the board from the declarer’s point of view:

W: ♠KQ8653 ♥K83 ♦Q106 ♣9

E: ♠AW ♥AQ ♦A874 ♣AKW42

What is your line of play?

It looks, as with trumps 3-2 you always make the contract with clubs 4-3. You put the ace, cash two top trumps - North shows out to the second. What now? You cannot ruff clubs twice as you will not be able to cash the heart king… So, you overtake heart queen with the king, cash two remaining trumps and finesse the club queen… Two down.

Look at the complete hand:

N: ♠9 ♥106542 ♦K5 ♣108653

W: ♠KQ8653 ♥K83 ♦Q106 ♣9

E: ♠AW ♥AQ ♦A874 ♣AKW42

S: ♠10742 ♥J97 ♦J932 ♣Q7

Who was the leader? Of course Cezary Balicki.

At the match between Poland and Turkey, grand was bid on both tables. On the other table, North made the unorthodox lead of a low heart and the slam was made with comfort.

In the match of the seniors of Poland and Sweden, both declarers faced the same problem (Apek Kowalski and Bjoern Wenneberg also led a low diamond). Bjerregard went down, while well known of his intuition and table presence Lasocki made the contract. He took the ace, cashed two trumps and continued with the ace and a small club. His comment was: "The chances of club finesse and clubs 4-3 looks similar to 2-nd or 3-rd club queen in any hand. I usually play for simply chances from about 60 years..."

I received results of the calculation made by one of my friends. He has shown that Lasocki's line was 4% better than overtaking a heart queen and a club finessee... This is the best comment to above mentioned words!